[Footnote 235:  The great picture by Dosso Dossi, to which I have alluded, is in the Modenese gallery.]

Nevertheless, not in evolution, but in man’s soul, his intellectual and moral nature, must be sought those abiding relations which constitute sound art, and are the test of right aesthetic judgment.  These are such as truth, simplicity, sobriety, love, grace, patience, modesty, thoughtfulness, repose, health, vigor, brain-stuff, dignity of imagination, lucidity of vision, purity, and depth of feeling.  Wherever the critic finds these—­whether it be in Giotto at the dawn or in Guido at the evensong of Italian painting, in Homer or Theocritus at the two extremes of Greek poetry—­he will recognize the work as ranking with those things from which the soul draws nourishment.  At the same time, he may not neglect the claims of craftsmanship.  Each art has its own vehicle of expression, and exacts some innate capacity for the use of that vehicle from the artist.  Therefore the critic must be also sufficiently versed in technicalities to give them their due value.  It can, however, be laid down, as a general truth, that while immature or awkward workmanship is compatible with aesthetic excellence, technical dexterity, however skillfully applied, has never done anything for a soulless painter.

Criticism, furthermore, implies judgment; and that judgment must be adjusted to the special nature of the thing criticised.  Art is different from ethics, from the physical world, from sensuality, however refined.  It will not, therefore, in the long run do for the critic of an art to apply the same rules as the moralist, the naturalist, or the hedonist.  It will not do for him to be contented with edification, or differentiation of species, or demonstrable delightfulness as the test-stone of artistic excellence.  All art is a presentation of the inner human being, his thought and feeling, through the medium of beautiful symbols in form, color, and sound.  Our verdict must therefore be determined by the amount of thought, the amount of feeling, proper to noble humanity, which we find adequately expressed in beautiful aesthetic symbols.  And the man who shall pronounce this verdict is, now as in the days of Aristotle, the man of enlightened intelligence, sound in his own nature and open to ideas.  Even his verdict will not be final; for no one is wholly free from partialities due to the age in which he lives, and to his special temperament.  Still, a consensus of such verdicts eventually forms that voice of the people which, according to an old proverb, is the voice of God.  Slowly, and after many successive siftings, the cumulative votes of the phronimoi decide.  Insurgents against their judgment, in the case of acknowledged masters like Pheidias, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, are doomed to final defeat, because this judgment is really based upon abiding relations between art and human nature.